


Egeria's children

by mysterytour



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Gen, Tok'ra, Tok'ra (Stargate)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 08:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14016414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mysterytour/pseuds/mysterytour
Summary: ...The cycle went on and on, and the crystal city stood through it all. But all civilisations must fall sooner or later, and so the city fell...





	Egeria's children

And so the Goa’uld fell. The power vacuum left in their wake was quickly filled by the Lucian Alliance, who fought and united, disarmed and disbanded, and from its ashes another great empire rose up. The cycle went on and on, and the crystal city stood through it all. But all civilisations must fall sooner or later, and so the city fell. Not in some grand, cataclysmic event, but slowly, over a period of several centuries. Civilisations blossomed on other worlds, economies boomed, and the humans began to move away.

The Tok’ra simply died.They would not find another queen sympathetic to their cause.

There came a time when only one family remained. They stayed until their love of the old city was finally eclipsed by loneliness. Then, they packed up their belongings, said goodbye to their neighbour and stepped through the Stargate, never to return. Now only one person remained within the city walls.

Well, technically, two.

Garshaw was not a child of Egeria, but she was the last of her kind. And she was very, very old.

It was a fine Spring day, so Garshaw decided to take some air. She walked among the sparkling, towering spires and the vast, sweeping buttresses that refracted the sunshine and threw rainbows across the flagstones. Lately (in the last century or so), the buildings had fallen into disrepair. The facades were chipped and dull from weathering, but Garshaw thought they were as beautiful as the day they were constructed. She’d overseen the growth of the buildings, herself. After millennia of hiding underground a change of lifestyle was long overdue.

There was little else to do anymore, but reminisce. Garshaw’s mind drifted.

_Selmak, Lantash, Jolinar, Garshaw . A windswept steppe on a world they’d visited for centuries. Selmak telling an extremely rude anecdote. The rest of them helpless with laughter._

Garshaw smiled. Only she had lived long enough to see the city built. It really was too bad.

_Yosuf, Saroosh, Martouf, Rosha._

Yosuf, whose mind and body had fit Garshaw so perfectly it was as if they were one.

Martouf and Rosha, who were so in love.

Independent Selmak, who pursued righteousness no matter the personal cost and was, in many ways, the wisest of them all.

Garshaw returned her thoughts to the steppe, and the endless rolling tundra that stretched from pole to equator.

 _A fine memory,_ said her host Valeria, _but..._

Here, crystal focused the sunlight into bright, shattered flecks that danced on the ground. Garshaw stopped momentarily to enjoy the heat on her skin. She wiggled her toes. ‘...memories are not enough.’ She finished, as-a-matter-of-factly, ‘Well of course they aren’t.’

Just like that, Valeria decided. She had been born in this city, spent most of her life within it’s walls, but now it was time to leave.

Garshaw returned them to their room. Valeria had left the windows open and the air was chilly and refreshing. The room was sparsely furnished. Throughout most of their history, Tok’ra had lived a nomadic existence, moving frequently and often with little warning from one world to the next, so they accumulated few effects. Even after they transitioned to a sedentary lifestyle. Old habits died hard, especially for people as old as they.

The most precious things she kept in a chest at the end of her bed. The wood was nearly black with age. Garshaw sat cross legged on the carpet and opened the lid...

Cuneiform tablets: love letters from Selmak to their first love. Poetry of the Ancients, composed some one point six million years prior. Photographs of long dead friends.

Pieces of a jade necklace.

Garshaw closed the chest. 'You know,’ she mused, tracing the grain with her fingers, ‘I don’t think I'll be going with you.’

 _No. I didn’t think that you would_. 

Garshaw passed control back to Valeria so she could pack her things. She would take only what she could carry in one trip. Everything that belonged to Garshaw was to be left behind. Everything, except for the fragments of a necklace, which she slipped into the pocket of her dress.

 _Where do you think you’ll go?_ Garshaw asked, as they stepped out into the open air.

‘I don’t know. I think I’ll decide when I get to the Gate.’

Since the weather was so nice, Valeria took the long way around to the Stargate. It was getting towards midday. Parakeets screamed above her head as they fluttered between the towers where they made their nests. The first clutches would hatch in little over a month.

The Stargate stood on a platform at the end of the square. The surrounding buildings were once coffee shops, patisseries, restaurants, bars. So much of life had happened here. In the summertime people sat outside and drank until sunrise, enjoying each other’s company.

_Rice wine with Samantha Carter. Two full moons. Midnight._

Baking heat. Bare shoulders.

What was the occasion?

Garshaw paused and dwelt on the memory. Of course—Samantha had recently made General and taken over operations at SGC. It wasn’t long after Garshaw herself had won the vote for Supreme High Councillor.

They’d worked so well together.

Now the buildings stood empty, and memory was all that remained. Even that would be gone, soon.

Life was so incredibly short, like that.

 _Goodbye, my dear host. I wish you a lifetime of happiness._ Garshaw said to Valeria as they ascended the steps.

Valeria set down her suitcase and knelt before the Stargate. It’s ancient arc invited her, though to where exactly she was not yet certain.

You will not be forgotten: those were the words that Egeria had spoken to the first of her children to die, and so Valeria spoke them to Garshaw as she retreated into the smallness of her own body. Her mind reached after Garshaw’s until it was gone from her completely. For the first time in twelve years, she was alone.

Valeria placed her hands upon the ground, and leaned forward.


End file.
